Well, I’m not going to go into a long diatribe since I just wrote about a pair of these, but I just wanted to make sure I featured this since it’s in remarkably good shape for the price. If you’re in the market for a Fiat 128, right now you’re spoiled for choice – this makes for a record 3 cars currently available. Being a southern car, this one should be pretty rust-free too. You can find it in Lancaster, CA, just outside of LA, for $1850.
So I was trying to name this in honor of Lunar New Year…. hmm, maybe I should write about a Sunbeam Tiger. If only they were still $3K…. so instead I’ll write about a Fiat 128. Hey, 8 is a lucky number, right?
I’m still fascinated by these cars, although experience is starting to tell me I should keep my fascination to rear-wheel drive cars. Access in the engine compartment is easier, thanks to nobody trying to squeeze in a transmission and drive shafts where engine stuff should be. That said, it’s pretty rare to find one of these, let alone in Kentucky, and apparently rust-free. So that brings us to our first car, whose seller has the same sense of irony (or resignation) in light of the Fiat takeover of Chrysler as the seller of last month’s 124 spider. Find our first example, a 1978 128 sedan, at Mann Chrysler Dodge Jeep in Richmond, KY for $1980.
As you might have noticed, I’ve been featuring cars discussed in a recent article in Hemmings Sports & Exotic Car, or at least near relatives thereof. The first two were a Mazda RX-7 and a Porsche 924S (they featured the 944), which left me with the following cars. Given the self-imposed limit of $3000, the search for an affordable example of each was not such a resounding success, especially when compared with the first two. Since these cars were available starting in the sixties, I added an additional constraint of being pre-1975 to make smogging easier for those of us who need to. Since each of these cars has been featured in the past, I’m not going to give each its own article. With that said, let’s get into it:
First up is a 1970 Triumph Spitfire. As a popular older car, parts are not that hard to find or that expensive. Further, it’s not hard to find a mechanically decent example that could use some cosmetic help in the future, while serving as a driver. This car, in Medical Lake, WA (near Spokane), is such a car. The owner invested a lot in the mechanicals, and the car now needs attention to a rough idle (attributed to the cam), along with paint and interior work. Since the work was done a while ago, count on doing some shake-down and then moving on to the looks department.
Rusty But Trusty 